U.S. Pat. No. 3392599, issued July 16 1968 to White and assigned to the assignee of this invention, describes a collapsible steering column for automobiles wherein hard steel balls between overlapping ends of upper and lower mast jackets of the steering column roll tracks in the softer mast jackets during collapse of the steering column to absorb energy. U.S. Pat. No. 3788148, issued Jan. 29 1974 to Connell et al and assigned to the assignee of this invention, describes a collapsible steering column embodying the same roll deformer energy absorption but further including preformed grooves in one of the mast jackets in which some of the hard steel balls are disposed. The grooves delay the onset of energy absorption by the corresponding ones of the steel balls and thereby tailor or stage the energy absorbing performance of the steering column. That is, during collapse of the steering column, the steel balls in the grooves do not achieve interference with the surrounding overlapped portions of the mast jackets until the collapse distance exceeds the length of the grooves. A collapsible steering column according to this invention achieves similar staged energy absorbing performance but without mast jacket grooves which must be closely controlled and, therefore, are relatively expensive to manufacture.